Recent Literature. 237 



requirements of" that class of readers for whom they are presumably 

 intended, while the biographical passages, although containing little that 

 is new, are always apt and interesting. The references to previous 

 records, as might be expected, form a marked feature; in the case of the 

 more important species, especially, they are so accurately collated, so 

 dispassionately weighed, and so conveniently grouped that they cannot 

 fail to render the work of the utmost value to even the most advanced 

 student of the subject. There are no new features of classification, but 

 it will be noticed that the nomenclature has in most cases been arranged 

 in accordance with some important changes which have been recently 

 proposed. The illustrations are fairly numerous, mainly technical in 

 character, and all taken from Dr. Coues's previous works. 



It is, of course, not to be expected that such a book will be entirely free 

 from errors, especially when we consider the fact that its editor (who, it 

 should be stated, announces himself " responsible for the accuracv and 

 completeness of the work") has had little personal experience w r ith New- 

 England birds as such. Those which do occur usually affect the breeding 

 distribution of the birds to which they relate. In most cases this is made 

 out with great judgment and in strict accordance with known facts, but 

 where the positive evidence is incomplete there are indications that the 

 editor occasionally gave free scope to his prophetic fancy. This running 

 ahead of the records is a dangerous business, despite Dr. Coues's masterly 

 argument in defence of " logical deductions " and the " logical results of 

 ratiocination." Birds, like many other beings, sometimes take it into 

 their heads to be erratic, and thus disappoint the prophets in various ways. 

 It is not always safe to base a positive general statement on one or two 

 exceptional occurrences, while it is even more hazardous to fill absolute 

 blanks from the analogy furnished by known parallel cases. This may 

 be appropriately demonstrated by considering some of the following 

 quotations from "New England Bird Life." 



Ttirdiis pallasi. — "The Hermit Thrush is another bird whose breeding 

 range draws a line between the two principal Faunae of New England, 

 being restricted in the breeding season to the Canadian Fauna, as the 

 Wood Thrush is to the Alleghanian." In point of fact, the Hermit Thrush 

 breeds regularly in Massachusetts at many places in Essex and Mid- 

 dlesex Counties, and on Cape Cod in abundance. Authenticated nests 

 have been taken at Gloucester, Beverly, and Concord, while in June and Jul v 

 we have heard manj- males singing near Hyannis, Marston's Mills, and 

 Osterville. Its distribution in the breeding season, so far from being, 

 as is elsewhere stated, closely coincident with that of Swainson's Thrush, 

 is rather to be compared with that of the Olive-sided Flycatcher, which 

 breeds generally and most abundantly throughout the Canadian Fauna ; 

 locally and sparingly, but still regularly, in the Alleghanian, and perhaps 

 occasionally just within the northern boundary of the Carolinian. 



Rrgulus calendula. — The Ruby-crowned Kinglet, given as " one of the 

 many birds which mark the distinction between the Canadian and Alle- 

 ghanian Fauna', being apparently limited by the former in its southward 



